Customers Browse Firearms at a Gun Shop in Iraq Amid Government Crackdown on Unlicensed Weapons
Interior Ministry outlines firearm registration timeline, tracking options for delays
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Interior Ministry detailed procedures for inspecting and registering firearms and the time frames required to complete applications, while outlining mechanisms for tracking delayed cases through the Ain Iraq application and a forthcoming electronic link.
Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Abbas al-Bahadli told Iraqiya News that “the process of inspection, registration and returning the weapon to its holder takes between 10 and 15 days, after which the citizen is given a receipt,” adding that “the citizen has the right to obtain a valid firearm possession ID for five years, renewable.”
Al-Bahadli said “the Permanent Committee for Regulating and Restricting Weapons to the State oversees the work of more than 700 registration centers across Iraq, in addition to centers, offices and mobile vehicles.”
He said “any delay a citizen may face in completing a transaction is purely technical and not intentional,” linking delays to “the requirements of criminal vetting, the presence of specifications matching other weapons, or duplication in serial numbers, which requires accuracy in inspection.”
On delayed applications, al-Bahadli said “the ministry has identified two tracks.” He said “the first will be made available starting this year through the Ain Iraq application via an electronic link that allows the citizen to inquire about the progress of the transaction, the stages of weapon verification and the date of license issuance.”
He said “the second track allows the citizen to visit the nearest center where the weapon was registered to ask about the reasons for the delay and the stage of criminal matching, inspection, coding and archiving before data entry into the national weapons database.”
The clarification comes as part of a broader firearms overhaul launched by the Interior Ministry in January 2024, requiring citizens to register personal weapons through the electronic Ur platform. The program established hundreds of registration offices across Baghdad and other governorates, excluding the Kurdistan Region, and included a weapons buyback initiative and stepped-up enforcement against unlicensed firearms.
In December 2025, the ministry extended the registration deadline through Dec. 31, 2026.